THE MISSING HEAD
The St Xavier Catholic School for Boys, located in the posh suburb of Juhu, had only recently celebrated its centenary and in so doing consecrated a glorious legacy of pedagogical and charitable endeavour in India’s most factious city. Chopra had recently become acquainted with the renowned institution’s colourful history, which came back to him now as he walked through its wrought iron gates.
Exactly one hundred years ago the Bishop of Bombay had invited a band of Portuguese missionaries to the subcontinent in the hope of making headway in the divine mission of converting the heathen. Astounded by the universal poverty and suffering that confronted them, the zealous Catholics had set about building an orphanage, which had later been converted into a school. The hope was that the school might be employed to bring the Word to the masses when they were at a more malleable age, that is, an age at which they would not take umbrage at being told that their seven-thousand-year-old faith was pagan nonsense and they would burn in eternal hellfire should they not immediately see the error of their ways.
The school had swiftly become a Mumbai institution.
Now it was one of the city’s most sought-after educational establishments, with parents willing to pay extortionate sums to enrol their future Tatas and Ambanis on its hallowed roster. The school continued to stay true to its roots, attempting to inculcate in each of its wards a sense of civic responsibility and charitable endeavour. One did not have to be a Christian to attend the school, but one was expected to imbibe the Christian virtues of decency, honesty and goodwill to one’s fellow man.
Chopra hoped that his wife was taking notes.
When Poppy had first told him that she had taken up the post of Drama and Dance teacher at St Xavier, he had thought she was making a joke.
But Poppy had been deadly serious.
After twenty-four years she had finally decided to join the rat race, as she had put it.
Chopra knew that Poppy had struggled for years with the fact of their childlessness. It saddened him too, though he had taken care to mask his disappointment lest Poppy mistake it for recrimination. He knew too that Poppy had never understood his steadfast refusal to adopt. He was not sure if he understood it himself. But each time he thought about taking on a child that was not his own he had somehow balked. Not because he believed that he could not love a child he had not fathered himself, but because of a strange sense that the child might not believe in him. In his authenticity as a parent.
After all, what qualifications did he have to be a father? For thirty years he had known only how to be a policeman. How to work long hours for little pay; how to deal with rapists and murderers; with cheats and thugs; with thieves and scam-artists. In what way did these endeavours qualify him to raise a young life?
But often, in the quiet of an evening, he would reflect that perhaps he had been selfish, and that his wife had paid for his selfishness.
Poppy loved children and they loved her. This was one reason why he had not protested when she had told him about her new job.
Chopra considered himself a traditionalist, but not old-fashioned. He had no objection to Poppy working, but he worried for her. He did not think that his wife quite understood what she was letting herself in for.
When he later discovered that Poppy had had an ulterior motive in pursuing this sudden career change it had come as no surprise. Over the years he had become accustomed to her personal crusades, which, like solar flares, burst forth with predictable regularity, usually incinerating everything in their path, but just as quickly running their course.
Poppy had learned that in the one hundred years of its history the St Xavier Catholic School for Boys had never hired a woman. This single explosive fact had seemed to her to encapsulate the entrenched attitudes that conspired to hold back the Modern Indian Woman. She had decided there and then that this scandalous state of affairs could not remain unchallenged.
And so began her campaign of guerrilla warfare.
She had hounded the school’s Board of Trustees for months, relentlessly haranguing them with threatening letters whilst simultaneously firing off countless articles to the local newspapers, one of which had been published under the incendiary headline ‘FÊTED SCHOOL INVITES WOMEN TO SWAB ITS FLOORS BUT NOT TO INSTRUCT ITS PUPILS’. Worst of all, she had organised a petition.
The St Xavier trustees, a roll call of octogenarians accustomed to dozing through the annual board meeting in readiness for the eight-course banquet that marked the end of another successful year, had felt as if an invading army had arrived at the gates.
Finally, hollow-eyed with terror at the prospect of yet another visit from Poppy, they had hoisted the white flag of surrender. A resolution had been passed unanimously agreeing that it would be an excellent idea to hire a woman and why the devil hadn’t anyone thought of it before?
Poppy had then proposed that she be considered for the position.
The trustees had exchanged looks and then fallen over each other in their haste to be the first to congratulate her.
Poppy had suggested that perhaps they should interview her first, just to ensure that she was the most deserving candidate. The trustees, a sheen of perspiration on their wrinkled brows, had assured her that no interview was necessary. They were more than impressed with her non-existent credentials… and by the way, what exactly would she be teaching? At this point Poppy had smiled sweetly. ‘I have one or two ideas,’ she had announced.
And so, after one hundred years of not realising that it needed them, St Xavier had begun to teach its cadets the essential skills of acting and Bharatanatyam dance.
And, as far as Chopra had heard, his wife had been a big hit.
He felt a sense of trepidation gathering inside his stomach as he approached the frosted glass door of the principal’s office. It reminded him of his own schooling in the single-roomed village school in Jarul presided over by his father, Premkumar Chopra, who everyone affectionately called Masterji.
Back then Chopra had not been a keen student. He was easily distracted. It did not help that the tin-roofed schoolroom was hot as hell, that flies buzzed continuously about his head, that chickens wandered in to peck at his toes, and that the occasional bullock coming back from the river would poke its head through the open window to see what all the fuss was about.
A dark-skinned man in spectacles and a flowing white cassock was waiting for them outside the office. He introduced himself as Brother Noel Machado, assistant to the principal.
‘I am so glad you have come,’ Machado said. ‘He has been beside himself. I shudder to think what he will do if you cannot help us.’
‘We will do our best,’ promised Chopra, though he still had no idea why Poppy had asked him here. She had been suspiciously close-mouthed on the subject.
They entered the office to find a tall, vulpine, elderly man also in a white cassock pacing the flagstoned floor behind a battered wooden desk. Hard grey eyes looked out from below great winged eyebrows. A beaked nose curved down towards a hard-set mouth that moved in wordless anger above a jowly chin.
Brother Augustus Lobo, principal of St Xavier, was something of a Mumbai legend.
The principal was approaching his ninetieth year but looked no older than a man in his late sixties. Lobo had once declared that he owed his enduring youth to the fact that he had, for the past fifty years, taken a daily dose of his ‘own water’, following in the footsteps of his hero, former Prime Minister of India Morarji Desai, who had advocated ‘urine therapy’ as the perfect solution for the millions of Indians who could not afford medical treatment for the panoply of ills that plagued them.
Lobo stopped pacing and swivelled to face his visitors with a glare that had turned many a future captain of Indian industry to jelly. Chopra heard Rangwalla shuffle behind him. Rangwalla’s schooling, he knew, had been rudimentary. He had no doubt the former sub-inspector was reliving the many beatings he had earned as a boy, beatings that were now personified in the minatory form of Augustus Lobo.
‘Hooliganism, Chopra! Damned hooliganism!’
‘Sir?’
‘I blame this modern culture of yours,’ growled the principal. ‘Disrespect is the fashion, nowadays. Loutishness is in, sir. A nation of degenerates, that is where we are headed… And what can we do about it? Those spineless goons in New Delhi have tied our hands. Do you know that I am no longer allowed to beat these young goondas? Do you think Father Rodrigues spared the rod when I was a boy? Why, Gandhi himself was roundly beaten as a young man, and a power of good it did him. And St Xavier positively welcomed a good thrashing from those villainous Portuguese soldiers who had turned from the faith down in Goa.’
‘Sir, may I ask why you have called me here today?’
Lobo gaped at him. ‘Didn’t your wife tell you?’
‘No, sir.’
‘A heinous crime has been perpetrated, Chopra.’
‘What crime, sir?’
‘Think of the worst crime imaginable.’
Chopra’s expression was quizzical. ‘Someone has been murdered?’
‘Worse!’ roared Lobo.
‘A crime worse than murder? Forgive me, sir, but it would be simpler if you just told me.’
‘They have taken our beloved Father Gonsalves!’
‘There has been a kidnapping?’ Chopra was astonished. ‘If this is the case, sir, then you must inform the police immediately.’
Lobo’s eyebrows met like duelling caterpillars. ‘It is better if I show you. Come with me.’
The school’s assembly hall looked out onto the school grounds through a succession of triumphant stained-glass windows depicting pivotal scenes from the life of St Xavier, as well as images of the Blessed Virgin and the Bom Jesus. The hall was lined with a succession of worn pews, inscribed with a hundred years’ worth of juvenile graffiti as young minds were subjected to the purgatory of daily Mass, Vespers and interminable speechmaking.
At least this was how Chopra viewed the depressing chamber.
Chopra was not a religious man, though he believed that everyone had the right to believe whatever he or she wished. In his experience religion and tolerance rarely went hand in hand. In the history of humankind more murders had been committed in the name of religion than in the pursuit of money, sex and power combined. This was particularly true on the subcontinent, which had seen regular convulsions and conquests in the name of one faith or another. It bothered him greatly whenever he saw the minds of children being filled with the belief that one form of connection to the Great Mystery was somehow superior to another.
They followed Principal Lobo up a flight of short steps to the stage. A pulpit-style lectern was positioned at the front. Directly behind it, at the rear of the stage, was a marble column on which stood an empty plinth.
Lobo flung a hand at the plinth. ‘There!’
Chopra stared. ‘There is nothing there.’
‘Precisely, Chopra! The damned goondas have taken it.’
Understanding dawned. He stepped forward and kneeled down to examine the brass plaque affixed to the edge of the plinth. It read:
‘Someone has stolen a bust?’
‘Not just any bust, Chopra. The bust of our founder.’
Chopra straightened up.
He realised that to Lobo this crime was of greater consequence than the theft of the Koh-i-Noor diamond, which had all but put two nations at each other’s throats. After thirty years on the force he knew that crimes were often this way. He had seen men kill over what at first glance seemed the most trivial of matters.
But everything was important to someone.
‘You wish us to recover the bust?’
‘It is imperative that you do. The very morale of our school is at stake.’
‘Why didn’t you call the police?’
‘This matter must be solved discreetly,’ growled Lobo. ‘I will not allow this school to become a laughing stock. I have informed the staff and students that the bust has been sent for polishing. The only ones who know about the theft are myself, Machado here, your wife, the janitor and the school secretary Mr Banarjee. And now you.’
‘And the thieves.’
‘What?’ Lobo glared at Rangwalla as if noticing him for the first time.
‘The thieves, sir,’ Rangwalla clarified queasily. ‘They know about the theft.’
‘Well, of course they do, man!’ roared Lobo. ‘They stole the thing, didn’t they?’
‘When did the theft take place?’ Chopra asked.
Machado took up the story while Lobo glowered at Rangwalla.
‘Three nights ago. The janitor discovered it in the morning, just before Mass. He swears it was there the evening before when he swept the hall after Vespers.’
‘How was the theft committed?’
‘The bust is kept under a glass case, as you can see. The thieves simply unscrewed the case from the plinth and removed the bust.’
‘How did they get into the school?’
‘They broke a window in the rear wing and climbed in.’
‘You have no guards?’
‘We are a school. We have never needed guards.’
Chopra looked thoughtful. ‘Do you have any suspects?’
‘It is D’Souza’s boys,’ muttered Lobo darkly. ‘I’ll wager on it.’
Chopra turned to Machado. ‘D’Souza?’
‘Principal of the St Francis Catholic School for Boys,’ clarified Machado. ‘Brother Lobo believes that Principal Angelus D’Souza is behind this theft.’
‘Why would the principal of another Catholic school steal the bust of your founder?’
‘To humiliate me, that’s why!’ Lobo exploded. ‘D’Souza has always been jealous of me, ever since we were boys. He used to be a Jesuit, you know, before he slunk off to join those wretched Franciscans. The St Francis school has always been second to St Xavier. Second and second rate.’
‘Are you suggesting the bust was stolen because of an inter-school rivalry?’
‘A rivalry that St Xavier has always had the upper hand in.’
‘But why now?’
‘Because His Holiness the Pope will be visiting Mumbai in a few months’ time,’ explained Lobo. ‘He will make a stop at one of the Catholic schools in the city. The only possible choices are St Xavier and St Francis. St Xavier is the clear front runner. I have it on good authority from the Vatican that His Holiness will choose us. This is a humiliation D’Souza cannot stomach. He thinks that by stealing the bust he will undermine the Vatican’s faith in us. Perhaps even tilt the odds in his favour.’
‘Surely the theft of one bust cannot have such dire consequences?’
‘“Malum quo communius eo peius”,’ muttered Lobo.
Unlike St Xavier, Chopra’s village school had not offered Latin as part of its curriculum. If it had, he would have known that Lobo had said ‘the more common an evil is, the worse it is’.
‘Our founder is our guiding spirit,’ continued the principal. ‘Indeed, his very spirit walks these halls. I often encounter him myself, late in the evening. He tells me I am doing a fine job. He tells me to fight the good fight. Today’s loutish generation need the Jesuit moral code more than ever. It is the rock upon which we have built our church. Are we to turn the other cheek while our founding father is whisked away from under our very noses? Do you think His Holiness will not take note of our laxness?’
Chopra realised that it was pointless to argue. ‘Very well. In that case we will do everything we can.’
‘You must confront D’Souza. The man is a spineless coward. He will crack like an egg.’
‘Sir!’
Chopra turned to see Rangwalla staring in horror through the stained-glass windows out onto the adjoining playing fields. He followed his deputy’s gaze… just in time to see a young boy running past with a baby elephant in hot pursuit.
‘It’s OK, boy, it wasn’t your fault.’
Chopra patted Ganesha on the top of his head, his voice soothing. The young elephant was back in the van where he had instantly collapsed to the floor with his trunk curled up under his face, eyes closed, ears flattened against his skull.
Chopra recognised the symptoms; Ganesha was deeply distressed.
Over the past months he had become an expert in reading the emotional state of his young ward – and what a range of emotions Ganesha had! He seemed capable of displaying all the feelings of a young child – happiness, sorrow, pain, petulance, anger and, above all, affection.
Like a child, Ganesha had little ability to control these feelings. He was impetuous and without guile. Sometimes Chopra feared that the little elephant had become too trusting, too willing to offer his affection to all those who approached him with a smile and a warm word.
Ganesha did not realise that in the world of humans, deceit and treachery often lay behind such a smile.
He recalled the mad panic as he and Rangwalla had dashed out into the manicured grounds of St Xavier. They had found Ganesha butting the trunk of a neem tree in which the young boy – aged no more than eleven, Chopra guessed – had wedged himself. The boy was wailing alternatively for his mother and the saints to save him.
‘Out of the way, Chopra! I’ll deal with this!’
Chopra had turned to find Principal Lobo bearing down on Ganesha with an antique blunderbuss under his arm.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
‘What does it look like I am doing? There is a rampaging elephant on the grounds! I am going to take it down before it hurts someone.’
Chopra had stood before Ganesha. ‘Then you will have to shoot me first.’
After Lobo had been hauled away by Brother Machado, Chopra had quietened Ganesha down and led him back to the van.
Now, he turned as Rangwalla arrived. ‘Well?’
‘Ganesha wanted to play with the boys. It seems that some of them decided it would be more fun to tease him. That young thug in the tree tied a bunch of firecrackers to his tail.’
Chopra turned back to Ganesha and saw that Rangwalla was right. The remnants of the string with which the crackers had been tied to Ganesha’s tail could still be seen. The bifurcated clump of long hairs at the end of the tail had been singed and a burn mark scarred the tail itself.
A cold fury raged through him, tempered only by the realisation that he could not, in good conscience, hold the boy to account. Boys were boys. The young oaf had probably not anticipated the harm that he had inflicted. No doubt he would learn his lesson.
He recalled the arrogant threats the little villain had shouted down from his perch as Chopra had led Ganesha away. ‘My father will have you arrested! Do you know how rich he is? He’ll crush you and that stupid elephant! You watch! I’ll get him, you see if I don’t!’
The words had strangely disturbed Chopra.
Normally, he would have ignored such silliness, particularly from the mouth of a boy still in shorts, but he couldn’t help but dwell on Lobo’s earlier sentiments.
Truly, the world was changing.
More and more Indian children were becoming spoiled brats – goondas, as Lobo called them. It would be easy to see this as yet another result of western influence, but Chopra felt there was a deeper malaise at work. Parents were busier, with more distractions. They spent less time with their children, and when they did they gave them the wrong messages. They had lost touch with their roots, the quintessentially Indian teachings of humility and respect that men like Gandhi had both practised and preached. Now, it was fashionable to be brash and bold. It was considered trendy to flaunt your wealth and power. This culture transmitted itself to the children, who grew up believing that the world revolved around them, and that all they had to do was reach out and take what they wanted.
Chopra couldn’t help but feel that the nation was breeding a lost generation. The consequences of this would, one day, be a very bitter harvest indeed.
But what if the boy had not found refuge in a tree? Would Ganesha really have hurt him?
Chopra knew that he sometimes forgot that Ganesha was not a kitten or a pet poodle. The little elephant weighed two hundred and fifty kilos and had the capacity to inflict serious physical injury on the frail humans he lived among. Ganesha had saved Chopra’s life earlier in the year by hurting the human traffickers who had attempted to kill him. But could Ganesha distinguish between villains and mischief-making boys? If not, then Chopra would soon have a real problem on his hands.
He glanced at his watch. He had done all he could for Ganesha for the moment. There was other work that he must attend to.
He looked up at his hovering associate detective. ‘Rangwalla, I want you to handle this case.’
‘Sir.’
‘I’m not as sure as Lobo seems to be that another school is behind the theft. This might just be a prank. You might be looking for an inside man. Or boy, to be more accurate.’
‘Sir.’
‘And talking of inside men…’ Chopra reached into his pocket and removed the papers that he had obtained from the personnel department at the Prince of Wales Museum. ‘I want you to track down these individuals. I want to know everything you can find out about them.’
‘Who are they?’
‘They are all staff members who joined the Prince of Wales Museum after it was announced that it would host the Crown Jewels exhibition. You need to work fast, Rangwalla. Sooner or later Rao will make the same leap.’
‘Count on me, sir.’
‘One last thing… Do you remember a man called Kanodia? Bulbul Kanodia?’
‘The jewel fence?’ Rangwalla’s brow corrugated into a frown. ‘You think he had something to do with this?’
‘What if I told you he was in the gallery at the time of the robbery?’ Chopra paused, momentarily thoughtful. ‘I need Bulbul’s old case file. And then I need to find out where he is now and what he’s been doing since he got out of prison.’
‘I can help you with the second part,’ said Rangwalla. ‘Kanodia went back to the jewellery business. Did very well by all accounts. He has a string of big jewellery stores now.’
‘How in the hell did he achieve that after spending two years in jail?’
Rangwalla shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But he’s managed to keep his nose clean.’
‘A leopard doesn’t change its spots, Rangwalla,’ said Chopra sternly.
Rangwalla nodded in agreement. ‘As for the old case file… Why don’t you just pick it up from the station?’
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘There is a new head at the station. Just arrived.’
‘Well, why don’t you ask him? I am sure he is a reasonable man.’
‘He is not a man, Rangwalla.’
‘There is a woman in charge of the station?’ Rangwalla could not have sounded more incredulous if he had been told that a baboon had just been elected Prime Minister.
‘Yes,’ said Chopra. ‘And a very competent one, from what I can tell. She has certainly whipped the place into shape – I’ve never seen the station looking so smart. And young Surat seems very impressed by her.’
‘What is her name?’
‘Malini Sheriwal.’
Rangwalla paled. ‘Did you say Malini Sheriwal?’
‘Yes. Why?’
‘You don’t mean Shoot ’Em Up Sheriwal?’
That was it!
Now Chopra knew where he had heard the name before. Shoot ’Em Up Sheriwal.
Inspector Malini Sheriwal had gained notoriety in the Brihanmumbai Police as the only female member of the so-called Encounter Squad. For years the Encounter Squad had terrorised Mumbai’s underworld, earning its unique sobriquet because of the long list of gangsters the squad members had shot dead in police ‘encounters’.
Chopra had read a Times of India article in which the Encounter Squad’s most successful detectives were lionised. Malini Sheriwal had been top of the tree. In three short years she had notched up more kills than the rest of the squad put together. Sheriwal was a crack shot, winner of the service’s Golden Gun tournament three years running. The word was that she was both fearless and ruthless.
But in the past year the tide of public sentiment had begun to turn. Human rights activists had begun to raise questions about these so-called ‘encounter’ killings. Suddenly the Encounter Squad was being portrayed as a gang of licensed vigilantes rather than heroic upholders of the law. The upper echelons of the force had sensed which way the wind was blowing and had quietly disbanded the unit and dispatched its members to relatively anonymous postings to lie low until things blew over.
This explained what Sheriwal was doing at the Sahar station. It didn’t explain to Chopra how he was going to get the Kanodia case file.
Luckily Rangwalla had a solution.
‘Leave it to me, sir.’